BID-Plymouth receives awards

The hospital received the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Gold Plus Honor Roll Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association /American Stroke Association and the Paul Coverdell Acute Stroke Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Award for Defect-free Care and Dysphagia Screening.

The Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus Honor Roll Award recognizes BID-Plymouth's commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence. To qualify for this recognition, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient's arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or TPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. This marks the ninth year that BID-Plymouth has received this award. Get with the Guidelines–Stroke program helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.

"We are proud to receive these prestigious awards from both the American Heart Association and from DPH's Coverdell Stroke programs," said Melissa Randall, BID-Plymouth unit-based educator, emergency department. "We strive to provide exceptional care to all our patients and it's great to be recognized for our hard work and passion in caring for our patients."

BID-Plymouth received a Coverdell Award for providing defect-free care to 85 percent or more of their stroke patients by utilizing all of the interventions for which each patient was eligible as well as a Dysphagia Screening Award, given to hospitals completing a dysphagia screen on at least 90 percent of stroke patients. This is a challenging measure for many organizations.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States.